ST. LOUIS PUBLIC SCULPTURE - MALCOLM MARTIN

 

One more by Harry Weber. Actually, this is just across the river in East St. Louis, Illinois. Malcolm Martin was a corporate lawyer in a big firm. My tiny firm was in the same building so I saw him around on occasion. He was successful, never married and wanted to do some good with his money. The land directly across the Mississippi from the Arch was vacant. Martin wanted to establish a viewing point for the river, Arch and downtown, preserved for the public. His bequest made it happen. It's a wonderful place.

This is an old picture. The object behind Martin is a one of many sculptured cakes marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of St. Louis.               

BACK HOME - THE GEYSER

We've been back home for almost a week and I have not been back out on the local streets. It's time to bring it back home, but for today I have to hit the archives. This is the Gateway Geyser. It is in a park in East St. Louis, Illinois, directly across the Mississippi from the Arch. They pop it off every day in the warmer months. How high the jet rises depends on the wind. If it's perfectly calm the water rises as high as the top of the Arch, 630 feet/192 meters.                 

THURSDAY ARCH SERIES IN IR

Haven't had a Thursday Arch picture in some time. There are only so many ways to look at it but this is a little different. Still wandering around with my infrared camera, this time at the park across the Mississippi from the monument in East St. Louis, Illinois. It's subtle, but I like what IR does to the colors of the flag.         

GOOD RIDDANCE TO 2020 FROM ST. LOUIS

The levee on the Illinois side of the Mississippi is a minimal barrier to more bad juju rolling into town in the new year. Note the detail on the train engine. 

May your new year be better. CDP theme day tomorrow.         

THE GEYSER

I get over to the Gateway Geyser in East St. Louis, Illinois, from time to time. We went with Ellie to check it out after our riverboat ride. It was a bit disappointing. How high it goes is supposed to depend on the wind. If the day is still the geyser blows exactly as high as the Arch. The breeze was light on Saturday but the spray wasn't very tall. The four smaller side jets that point a bit inward were off. It still makes for a good picture with the right sky.

The geyser is visible from my office window. It clearly went up full blast on Monday despite higher winds sending the spray way off to the side. It's too far away, though, to get a good photo through a coated window.       

THURSDAY ARCH SERIES

Haven't run one of these for a while. It's not so different. After 20 years of photographing this thing my imagination wears thin. This was shot on the same dank day as the last few posts. This one is from the observation deck, a few feet from Malcolm Martin's statue. It's a great view but the damn thing for photographers is that there are three pairs of high voltage electric lines crossing the the upper half of the frame. You can take them out in Photoshop - I did - but it is slow, painstaking work. Anyway, hoping for better weather and light.                

MALCOLM MARTIN

Malcolm Martin had a long career as an attorney in St. Louis. His big firm and my tiny one were in the same building for years and I would often see him on the elevator, always a gentleman, always with a kind smile for a young lawyer. He was deeply involved with local civic organizations, was a member of the Board of Education and a co-founder of our local public television station.

The story has it than he never married and had no children. When he died in 2004 he left $5 million to acquire the land in Illinois directly opposite the Arch. There is now a large open green space, an observation platform 40 feet / 12 meters high with the best view of the Arch around, and the Gateway Geyser we've seen in the last couple of days. (If we get better weather I'll go back.)

Now his likeness sits on top of the view site, gazing for some fraction of eternity at the Arch and downtown St. Louis. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malcolm_W._Martin_Memorial_Park        

JUST THOUGHT I'D DROP THIS IN

I was editing some more photos of the Gateway Geyser and came up with this. Thought it was worth publishing. See tomorrow's regular post about Malcolm Martin, the person for whom the park is named.       

GEYSER

There is a park in East St. Louis, Illinois, directly across from the Arch. It has a tall overlook facing downtown and this thing, the Gateway Geyser. It looks a lot better on a clear day and when it is spraying up to its full height, but I took what I could get. 

On a day when the air is perfectly still the spray can go over 600 feet, about 190 meters, as tall as the Arch itself. It wasn't half that yesterday although there was little wind. I'll go back on a nicer day.           

THURSDAY ARCH SERIES

Taken a couple of weeks ago from the overlook in East St. Louis when the river was at its highest. The water went down some but we have had severe thunderstorms for a few days. The river level is going up again. Areas that have levees are doing okay. Those that don't are inundated, catching all the water pushed away by the levees.            

GO FLY A KITE

Found in Malcolm Martin Memorial Park in East St. Louis, Illinois. It is directly across from the Arch and contains a wonderful overlook across the Mississippi. There is also the Gateway Geyser, an enormous water jet whose spray, wind permitting, rises as high as the Arch itself. 

Most of the area is open green space. The Authorities don't want anyone snooping on the park or the nearby grain elevator, casino or railroad tracks. (Note the camera on the symbol of the drone.) Presumably a gentle kite is okay.            

Sunset on the Mississippi

Phone cam shot so not the cleanest image. Taken from my office window one afternoon this week. The foreground is the new-ish and rather pointless northern extension of the Arch park, where a useful and reasonably priced garage used to serve visitors. Eads Bridge on the left and the low sunlight falling on a casino hotel in Illinois. You can't help but notice the smog on the horizon.

But Ol' Man River, he just keep rolling along.          

We Interupt Our Regularly Scheduled Programing

I still have some California material I want to post but this is worth a diversion. There was a full moon rise last evening. This was taken from my office window. The territory in the foreground is East St. Louis, Illinois. The Mississippi is just off the bottom of the frame. Although it was cloudless the air wasn't exactly clear. Wish the moon were sharper.   

Ninty Degrees To The Right

And a few minutes earlier than the shot in yesterday's post. The drama of the storm front over the Mississippi, Eads Bridge and East St. Louis. Here in the Midwest that yellow sky sometimes signals a tornado.                 

Perspective

If only people had some kind of camera in the late Middle Ages, painting would have come a lot farther a lot faster in the Renaissance. Taken on the East St. Louis Riverfront.

                   

You Don't Need A Weatherman To Know Which Way The Wind Blows

One of everyone's favorite and most enduring Bob Dylan lyrics. (Note who is in the lower left of this YouTube clip.)

Okay, the last of the geyser pix. This one, taken from my office window, is a broader view but the base is concealed by a grain elevator. Looks like a strong wind out of the south. The water is blowing farther horizontally than vertically. We can figure out the direction for ourselves.         

Landscape or Portrait?

I'm a bit hard up for material so I'm sort of rotating yesterday's post. There's a similar shot in color if anyone wants to see it.  The horizontal pulls in more of the clouds.

There is a fourth small jet off-frame to the right. You can see just a bit of its spray here. Wikipedia says "the four minor fountains represent the four rivers which converge at St. Louis and East St. Louis." So, um, there's the Mississippi, the Missouri, the Illinois just to the north, and the - what? There's a piddly local river at the southern edge of the city coming in from the west called the Meramec but it's nothing to brag about. Someone took poetic license.    

Tech tip: you get this dramatic effect of a dark blue sky by using a polarizing filter and rotating it to its darkest position. If you want to go to the trouble, you can also use a CTO (color temperature orange) filter on your lens or do the equivalent in Photoshop or Lightroom.

Thar She Blows

Every once in a while I get across the river to shoot the Gateway Geyser. It is in Malcolm Martin Memorial Park in East St. Louis, Illinois. I see it from my office window but I'm not often free to visit at the right time.

It's quite a lot bigger than the Jet d'Eau in Geneva, which impressed me when I saw it, but ours goes off just three times a day, noon, 3 and 6, in the warmer months. It can blow as high as the Arch is tall, 630 feet / 192 meters, but only when the wind is soft. Otherwise it would rain all over the surrounding neighborhoods and can be a hazard for planes using a nearby private airport. I don't think it was at its maximum height yesterday.        

Back To The High Contrast Stuff

The June 1 theme day was shadow and highlight. I mentioned in my post that I had edited other similar pictures and planned to run a few.

This was taken a few paces away from the June 1 photo but turned around to the north. The structure in the upper midground is part of a conveyor system that moves grain from barges on the Mississippi to grain elevators off to the right. The bright structure in the background is the Stan Musial Bridge.             

City Daily Photo Theme Day: Shadow and Highlight

I've been cruising around looking for high contrast images. (Well, Photoshop helps, too.) This one is my favorite. Taken from the riverfront in East St. Louis, Illinois, looking back at the Arch. The concrete structure in the bottom foreground is a floodwall, holding back the highest levels of the Mississippi. Note the angled support posts. I bet there is steel inside.

The dark structure is the Eads Bridge, often seen in these pages before. (For example, here.)

Have a look at the submissions from CDP members around the world here.

There are a number of other high contrast B and W shots I took around the same time. More pix from Kansas first but then I think I'll roll with this set for a few days.